Page 11 of Find My Way Down to You

Junie grins relentlessly at Max. “Fine,” she sighs out. “But not too late. I have Intro to World Art at eight a.m.”

“Gross.”

Max watches me. “Auggie?”

My fingers itch to grab my bracelet. Or drum against the air to the rhythm of my wild heartbeat.

I can always tell when you’re anxious, London used to say.You do that thing with your hands. Like you’re composing a song.

I’d tell him he was wrong. But he wasn’t. He rarely was about me.

“If we both go”—I pause to clear my throat—“who will feed Diana?”

Max’s lips pucker. She’s unconvinced.

“Next time, right?” Junie says. He knows how this goes too.

Whenever the staff invites me out, I always saynext time.

Next time I’ll go bowling. Next time I’ll come to the beach. Next time I’ll be there.

The truth is, I won’t. Letting new people in is dangerous. It’s the allure of a glowing fire that’ll burn when you get too close. A cold, empty darkness when that flame finally dies out.

That’s how it felt after London. How it always feels.

“Next time,” I whisper as Max, Junie, and Tonia walk out the door.

After another thirty minutes, I leave too. Not before cleaning the restrooms again. Angela thanks me with a large box of leftover pizza.

I take my time walking to the bus stop.

It’s long after sunset. State Street Promenade stretches like an artery through downtown Santa Barbara. Ten blocks of Spanish Revival architecture. Red clay tile roofs and ornate wrought iron and stucco walls white as teeth. At this hour, everything is warm and gold, like light poured through a honeycomb.

My favorite time of day.

One by one, shops are closing. Sugar and salt hang heavy on the breeze. From the mouths of an Irish pub and a British one just across the street, people stumble drunkenly onto the sidewalks, their bellies full, laughter echoing. Sharp spices from Max’s favorite Indian kitchen gather in my nose, heating the back of my throat.

I smile fondly.

This is the city I grew up with. Tucked between the shadowsof the Santa Ynez Mountains and the sleepy Pacific. I’m at home among the insomniacs and stay-up-until-sunrise types. I never feel strange. Or out of place.

Here, being invisible is easy. There’s too much to look at. No one notices the boy going through the motions.

Holding on by the barest thread.

The night exhales noises from every direction. I listen closely.

Since I was little, I’ve loved to hum. Pull random tunes from thin air. By the time I turned thirteen, my dad decided to enroll me in piano lessons. I took them for a year, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as when I’d sit down to write lyrics to the songs in my head. There was something about a blank page that drew my attention more than learning scales or memorizing chords or playing “Heart and Soul.”

I can still kind of read sheet music, identify basic notes, but I prefer to turn the constant looping melodies I hear in my head into my own songs.

At least, I used to.

I’d only ever share my lyrics with four people: my parents, Max, and London.

You should major in music, London would say with tender enthusiasm.

Now I squeeze my fingers into a fist. I silence the tune circling my brain before it becomes a tide of more memories I don’t want to face.